To Write Right

It's been a while since I go into some personal thoughts or observations here--mostly because I've been so busy writing. Ha! How's that for irony? I don't feel like writing because I'm writing. I've mentioned before that sometimes I feel like I have this tank of words I can use, and when I use them up, the tank is empty and it needs to recharge. I'm not sure how big or small that tank is, but I do know that it definitely exists. I can't call this a regular writer's rationalization. Instead, I need to call it this writer's realization.

I'm working on a really neat project that will be released very soon--like, at the end of the month! It's been taxing and challenging and frustrating and exhilarating and all the cool adjectives that I can use. It's also a time suck like no other. My mother has pointed out that I seem to have taken a sabbatical from a column that I was writing, and that's my own fault, which I will rectify soon, but then it will be a word-suck and I'll be back in this place of empty tanks.

To be honest, that's a good thing. The shift from technical writing to this creative/other stuff has been long overdue, and part of the risk and part of the joy lies in the actual act. I've given myself permission to suck, and with it the opportunity to learn and grow. It's all in the process, after all.

This blog, for example, has served the need to produce words, but as I find other places to put those words, the tank here goes empty for a while. And yet, it is through here and other bloggers that I have found a connection and some inspiration.

"Solitude, competitiveness and grief are the unavoidable lot of a writer only
when there is no organization or network to which he can turn." --Toni Morrison

How true! I've been lucky to have found some interesting places for support, whether it has been purely entertaining and inspirational,--check out Wil Wheaton's commentaries on writing, or spot on right about the process--check out Bonnie Gillespie's brilliant treatise on writing correctly, or just plain fun and challenges to be creative in any way that inspires at Ink 'n Doodles Creative Workshop. It's not a commercial folks; it's more like a Public Service Announcement.

Happy trails. I hope you check back in on the 30th for the world premiere of a neat little project.